Parlera
Population: 1,125,500 (85% Humans, 10% Dwarves, 4% Half-Elves, 1% Elves) Government: Dictatorship Religions: Harvest Mother Imports: Coal Exports: Lumber, Fish Life and Society Humans from Parlera are generally racist, due to the city-state’s unique history with the Elves of Ninthrill Forest. Going back over five hundred years, to the initial settlement of the kingdom, there have been waves of tolerance and intolerance. At times, the Humans of Parlera are sensitive of the Demihumans who live in the city, and at other times, they are intolerant of them, especially Elves. Life is also very stratified based on where an individual is from. Those living in the more remote, more pastoral settlements generally have a dislike towards city dwellers, considering them ‘un-Parleran’ in behavior and deed. Conversely, those who live in the more urban settlements generally have a dislike towards those who live in the more remote parts of the nation, considering them backwards rubes. Because of the iron fist that the Archduke has on Parlera, the government is very centralized, is very strong, and has a great impact on the daily affairs of people. The government monitors it’s people very closely, and most residents know this. As a result, many Parlerans, especially older ones, have a paranoia of sorts, and take the utmost care to be fully aware of whatever environments they are in. Magic, in Parlera, is illegal unless the magician is registered with the Alliance of the Arcane, the governmentally sanctioned magician guild. The Archduke uses this registry to be aware of magicians in the city, allowing him to keep tabs on these people. Having magical skills himself, Archduke Brogo understands the power of magic, and does not want to see those who may challenge him empowered by it, or using it against him. Major Organizations Parleran Security Network -The Parleran Security Network, PSN for short, is an older organization that was recently restructured. The PSN, for decades, was simply an information sharing and clearing organization operated by the Parleran government. Since 1147, the PSN has been reorganized to a secret police of sorts, for the Archduke Brogo Kelstadt. Alliance of the Arcane -The Alliance of the Arcane is the only mage guild that operates in the nation. It was formed shortly after Archduke Brogo gained absolute power in the country. The alliance is government-sponsored, and all magicians who want to practice magic in the nation must register with it. The Archduke uses it to keep tabs on potential challenges to his power, by both utilizing the power the magicians provide him and keeping tabs on those who might challenge him. Akh’Tel’Shil -The Akh’Tel’Shil, which translated from Elven means ‘Need of the People from the Shadows’, is a secret organization that operated in Parlera. Composed of Elves and sympathetic Half-Elves and Humans, the ATS. as it is commonly abbreviated as, works to protect Elven lands and work to promote Elven interests against the Parleran government. Major Geographical Features Parlera is situated in the southeastern reaches of Okarth’s central continent. It is known as the ‘Forest Kingdom’ because of the large preponderance of forested woodland. The largest forest within the political boundaries of Parlera is Ninthrill Forest, composing the western and northern borders of the nation. The Feywoods, in the eastern reaches of the nation, mark her eastern boundaries. Finally, in the south, lie the Lurkwood. Before Parlera was settled, the three forests were connected, and composed a greater Ninthrill Forest. The kingdom grew from the parcel of land in what it today central Parlera that was originally gifted to the Humans who had settled in the area to log, separating the three forests. Parlera enjoys unchallenged dominance of the Bay of Gulls, because it is the only seafaring civilization to have direct access to it. As a result, Parlera was able to branch out and colonize the island of Erris, forming a shipping lane between the island and the mainland that the Parleran navy patrols. This also makes shipping to and from the Island-Nation Confederation easy and safe, allowing Parlera to benefit from the constant coming and going of goods. Parlera also has direct access to the waters leading to Nilgoav Island, but because the island is relatively devoid of natural resources, or civilized habitation, very little shipping going back and forth occurs. Parlera enjoys a relatively consistent mild climate across the majority of the year. The lowest lows have been recorded at about 50 degrees, and the highest highs have been recorded at about 90 degrees. The kingdom experiences mild winters and mild summers. Parlera is known as the ‘Forest Kingdom’ because of the ample amount of deciduous forest within her political boundaries. The lands that have been clear cut and deforested completely now are rolling hill land, primarily. All sorts of forest animals can be found within her forests and hill lands. Important Sites Bustoke -In addition to being Parlera’s largest, the city of Bustoke is also the capital. Settled hundreds of years ago when the nation was first born, it has always been home to the nation’s monarchy, as well as the nation’s most important nobles and politicians. Its location, right on the edge of Ninthrill Forest on the shores of the Bay of Gulls benefited it greatly, as it is one of the main points of destination for vessels going to and from the Island-Nation Confederation. Rhenia -Rhenia is Parlera’s second largest city, located southeast of Bustoke, on the edge of the Feywood in the shadows of the Black Root Mountains. Even though it is not as large or cosmopolitan, Rhenia is more diverse than any other city in the nation because of the many Dwarves, Gnomes and Halflings who make their homes there because of it’s proximity to Tanthulthud. Vankur -Vankur is Parlera’s southernmost city, settled on the edge of the Lurkwood. It is the smallest of the nation’s cities. Historically, it has also been the most far removed from the status quo of politics, because of the influence the Woodcutter’s Guild has had there. In the past, among many, the Woodcutter’s Guild was the true center of power in the country, not the monarchy. Since it’s dissolution, Vankur remains the most weary and suspicious of Archduke Brogo Kelstadt. Erris Regional History Like most other cities in the south, Parlera has a relatively short history, dating back only a few hundred years or so. Like most other cities in the south, as well, Parlera’s history has been influenced by the Elves living in proximity to them. Unlike the other major cities of the south, however, Parlera’s relationship regarding Elves is mired in violence and conflict. For many years, Humans have lived in the south, having migrated from the north. Most settlements were small hamlets and villages, with tiny populations, that were mostly insignificant. The thick, massive woodlands kept the Humans far from the Wood Elves, and as a result, the Elves tolerated these Humans living in proximity to them. Periodically, however, the Humans and the Wood Elves of Ninthrill would come into contact with each other, and often times, ended in conflict. In UC 648, a group of small a group of small towns and villages banned together, to create an economic force to counter the rising presence of Metchult to the southeast. Led by a charismatic businessman named Braedan Dyrrande, this economic confederation of small towns and villages began entered deeper and deeper into Ninthrill Forest to obtain timber for trade. Unbeknownst to all involved, Braedan Dyrrande, was interested in more than simply logging. Braedan was a Drow, from the city of Charynelth. In fact, his name, Dyrrande, was an anagram of his true last name, Daendyrr. Like all other Drow, Braedan Daendyrr hated the surface Elves. He intended to use the Humans he led to destroy Ninthrill Forest, and the Elves who inhabited it. Working both sides, Braedan Daendyrr soon began instigating conflict. He murdered a group of loggers, and made their deaths seem like the work of the Wood Elves. He set large plots of forest on fire, making it appear to be the work of careless Human loggers. Eventually, the Drow got what he wanted, as actual Elven-Human conflicts began increasing, until a bloody conflict began. Casualties on both sides were high. During the fighting, Braedan Daendyrr disappeared, either having been killed, or having returned to Charynelth. His successor, an entrepreneur by the name of Darmara Arsol, was able to stop the conflict in UC 650, by agreeing to the terms negotiated by the Wood Elves, as a way to bring peace to the two communities. Arsol signed a treaty with the king of the Wood Elves, King Lhombaerith Goldenleaf, which saw the Ninthrill Elves cede a portion of their forest lands to the Humans, to do with as they saw fit, and limited logging rights elsewhere, for peace. With the treaty, the kingdom of Parlera was born, with Darmara Arsol serving as its first queen. Under the leadership of Queen Darmara, the fledgling kingdom grew rapidly. Bustoke, her capital, experienced an economic boom, leading to a population boom, turning the small hamlet into a bustling city within months. Her sister city, Rhenia, experienced the same thing. Many living in the smaller villages within Parlera, outside of Bustoke and Rhenia, began to fear that the strong central government of the queen would interfere with their business ventures, and would place a check on both their profits and their power. So, in UC 652, Parlera’s Woodcutter’s Guild was formed, to empower the smaller woodcutters and loggers outside of the main cities of the kingdom through unionization and collectivism. Almost from the beginning, the Woodcutter’s Guild was less interested in ensuring that Parlera’s central government didn’t treat the rural population unfairly as much as it was accruing personal power and wealth for those running it. The first leader of the organization, Xanavim Hamelstock, ran the organization more like an organized crime racket than a guild. In UC 655, the first skirmishes in the Fifty-Years War began. The Woodcutter’s Guild knowingly and intentionally went deeper into Ninthrill Forest than the treaty of UC 650 allowed them to. This breach caused the Elves of Ninthrill to react with deadly force, as they swore they would. The illegal loggers were killed from afar, with Elven arrows. Upon learning what happened, Xanavim Hamelstock and the Woodcutter’s Guild spun the story in such a way to make it appear that the Elves were at fault, and brought the issue to the attention of Queen Darmara. The queen had her suspicions about the legality of the logging venture, as well as Hamelstock’s true intentions, but she found herself between a rock and a hard place. If she did nothing, the Woodcutter’s Guild would have more political capital, and would be further empowered. If she did react, however, it would almost guarantee a conflict with the Ninthrill Elves. In the end, she did what she thought was best for her people, and sought retribution against the Wood Elves, sparking the Fifty-Years War. The conflict would last for years- fifty, to be exact. When the Elves lashed out at the loggers, the loggers would lash back at the Elves twice as hard, with both sides considering themselves victims. All the while, obviously, Human and Elven relations in the kingdom fell to an all time low. Nationalistic Parleran Humans refused to buy goods from Elven merchants, and nationalistic Elven merchants refused to sell their goods to Human clients. Things reached their breaking point in UC 705, when a spontaneous riot broke out on the streets of Rhenia. Nationalistic Parleran Humans rounded up the Elven and Half-Elven populace of the city, which made up about 20% of the total population, and began systematically killing them. While no concrete figures exist, it is believe that around 1,200 Elves and Half-Elves were killed in the span of three days. Hearing the news of what happened, King Lhombaerith Goldenleaf dispatched Elven agents into the Rhenia to secret away the remaining Elven and Half-Elven residents. He then put out a call for all other Elven and Half-Elven residents of Parlera to retreat into Ninthrill Forest, where they would be safe from the senseless aggression of the Parlerans. As the retreat deeper and deeper into Ninthrill Forest, they abandon their fight against Parlera, effectively ending the Fifty-Years War. Slowly but surely, the Elves of Ninthrill Forest begin an exodus from their native woodland home to the Elven Enclave, though many are adamant in staying behind, in the deepest parts of the woods. Not all were happy with simply allowing the Elves to escape away. In UC 707, two years after the Fifty-Year War ended, three of Parlera’s top generals, General Matilda, General Vanabil, and General Lavale, began plotting a coup. They wished to replace the royal family and restart the war, to completely eradicate the Elves in the region. In UC 709, the plot was discovered. Along with high-ranking co-conspirators and their families, the three generals were banished from Parlera. They would go on to settle the lands to the east of the nation, which would become known as the ‘Garrison States’. During the Fifty-Year War, Parlera would be involved in other ventures. Seeking the Elven Enclave, the mythical island of the Elves that lay far to Parlera’s west, Captain Jordash Uskill set sail from Bustoke in UC 659. Weeks after leaving port, his ships landed on the island of Erris, improbably navigating a safe route through the reefs that protected the island from the outside world for so long. Initially, the captain and his sailors believed they were on the Elven Enclave, but after encountering the Volodni, the native inhabitants of the island, they realized that they were on an uncharted landmass altogether. The Parleran sailors lived among the Volodni for a few weeks before sailing back to Bustoke, with news of their discovery. For the nearly next thirty years, the Parleran government sat on the information, as they fought the Elves of Ninthrill. But in UC 688, the government authorized a small fleet to sail to the island of Erris, to colonize it. Unlike Captain Uskill’s first venture to the island, this fleet did not steer clear of the reefs that surrounded the island, and many vessels were damaged in various ways, with a few boats even sinking. The fleet returned to Bustoke, and plans promptly began to clear the reefs that protected the island’s southeast- the closest and most direct from Parlera. For nearly two years, on and off, Parleran men and woman cleared the reefs, until enough headway had been made. In UC 690, the Parlerans landed their fleet on Erris. The force sent by Parlera soon encountered the Volodni, and, having been prepared for war, began fighting with them. The Parlerans were well equipped, while the Volodni were not. Completely outclassed, the Volodni, in desperation, summoned a powerful creature from the Plane of Faerie, the Queen of Thorns, to aid them. Despite her presence, the Parlerans continued slaughtering the Volodni wholesale, to the point that they soon disappeared completely from Erris- some say the race went extinct, killed to the last individual, while other believe that some survived, and left the Material Plane for the Plane of Faerie, or some other world. Though the Volodni were soon vanquished, the Queen of Thorns was not so easily defeated, however. Loriáth, a powerful Druid who had stowed on one of the ships headed to Erris, guided by dreams and the notion that a great destiny laid ahead for her, confronted the Queen of Thorns on the site that would soon become the Grove of the Archdruid, and challenged the Archfey. Improbably, Loriáth defeated the Queen of Thorns, binding her to the site of the challenge, which became the Grove of the Archdruid. Loriáth, naturally, became the first Archdruid of Erris. With no more enemies, the conflict on Erris ended, and the Protectorate of Erris was founded, with the island becoming a part of Parlera. With the Fifty-Years War over, and Erris annexed, the kingdom of Parlera began booming once more. For the next few decades, Parlera would deforest the area rapidly, enriching itself on the profits of the timber, exported to the north and the east. The central region of the expanded kingdom, which was once wholly covered in woodland, was deforested, with three separate forests emerging from what was once the greater Ninthrill Forest- Ninthrill Forest in the west, the Feywoods in the east, and the Lurkwood to the south. It would be from the Lurkwood that the kingdom’s next crisis would come from. In UC 815, loggers in the Lurkwood accidentally stumbled upon the lair of Arthiltamathrax, a powerful Green Dragon, waking the creature, which had been hibernating for centuries. Angered the Great Wyrm slaughtered those who had woken it, and began attacking villages and towns scattered across the kingdom, before setting his eyes on Bustoke, the capital. The Parleran military barely had much time to prepare Bustoke’s defenses before the mighty wyrm descended on the city. The fighting was fierce and terrible, with large portions of the city being destroyed and hundreds of residents being killed, including the reigning king, King Arboth Arsol. In the end, though, the defenders of Parlera were able to slay the mighty Dragon. After the destruction of Bustoke, the new king, Merith Arson, Arboth’s brother, begins an investigation as to how Arthiltamathrax came to be woken. As Bustoke was rebuilt, the king instituted limits regarding logging policies that were met with fierce opposition from the Woodcutter’s Guild. Using a strategy borrowed from the Elves, King Merith “bribed” a Mist Dragon living on a small island in the Great Lake, Serrasophiss, to take up residence in the Lurkwood, to serve as the unofficial “law” in the forest, to ensure that loggers did not deforest areas that they were unauthorized to. After some time, the Woodcutter’s Guild eventually learned of King Merith’s ‘treachery’. In UC 860, they struck back. After a campaign that went on for years, the Woodcutter’s Guild successfully lobbied limits to be put on the monarchy’s power. While the king would remain the head of state, a new legislature, known as the Thane’s Council, was to be put in place to enact laws. The Woodcutter’s Guild felt that it would gain the upper hand, since it would be relatively easy to influence members of the council- noble men and women from across the country- and the leader of the council, the Archduke. For the next two hundred years or so, the status quo was maintained in relative peace. The monarchy and the Woodcutter’s Guild sniped at each other, while the Thane’s Council balanced the two sides, temporarily empowering whichever side they agreed with the most at the time. Things would change in UC 1,103, when a young noble was elected the Archduke of Parlera in a stunning turn of events. Brogo Kelstadt, born in UC 1,085, was a fairly unassuming member of the Thane’s Council, more or less appointed as a political favor. An unassuming apprentice to a local magician, greatness did not seem destined for the lanky young lad. When the vote for Thane Council leader- the Archduke of Parlera- came up in UC 1,103, Brogo Kelstadt improbably won. Some say that the young nobleman won only as a result of votes being cast in opposition to other blocs that had formed within the council. Others say that he won because he masterfully manipulated and played others without their knowing they were being used. Others say that he won because he and associates of his cheated and rigged the elections. In UC 1,106, there was an attempt on Archduke Brogo’s life. ‘One Eye’ Erik, an assassination of ill repute attempted to kill the Archduke. Brogo survived and ‘One Eye’ Erik was sentenced and killed shortly after being captured. He survived the incident and used to lobby the Thane’s Council to form a personal protection force to serve and protect the Archduke. The council agreed and the Silver Knights were formed. Unbeknownst to all, the Archduke arranged the assassination attempt himself, as a means to curry sympathy. With the Silver Knights at his behest, the Archduke began a campaign of secret assassinations, against fellow members of the Thane’s Council, as well as leading members of the Woodcutter’s Guild and members of the royal family. They were all done discretely, as not to implicate him or his forces. In UC 1,108, his term limits were reached and Archduke Brogo was supposed to step down from his position. The twenty-three year was able to hold on to his position by doing something the monarchy had dreamed of for centuries- successfully dismantling the Woodcutter’s Guild. Archduke Brogo accomplished this by manipulating different factions within in, and subtlety influencing the direction that those leaders took it in and bylaws and charters that were passed and adopted. By the time leaders of the Woodcutter’s Guild realized that the Archduke had, in effect, checkmated them, it was too late. Those who were allied with the Archduke were offered generous “severance” packages, and resettled to other nations. Those who were not were killed in secret by the Archduke and the forces of the monarchy. Archduke Brogo was not done there, however. He had secretly abducted all living direct heirs to the throne and used them to blackmail the king and queen. Using them as leverage, he was able to get King Hâmus III to expand the scope and authority that the Archduke had, by limiting his own authority. Over the next few decades, Archduke Brogo Kelstadt would retain his power and counter threats to it through similar underhanded moves. In UC 1,125, for example, he prevented the island of Erris from even entertaining thoughts of independence through targeted assassinations and kidnappings. All magicians had to be registered with the Alliance of the Arcane, a governmentally-associated magicians guild or face arrest. Secret police infiltrated the Church of the Harvest Mother and kept tabs on priests and priestesses who seemed problematic. By and large, most members of the public did not care, as there was little difference between being ruled over by a king and by an archduke; Archduke Brogo changed little in Parlera to rile up the common populace. Recently, the Archduke has shown some willingness to reopen old wounds and stoke the ancient flames of racism and xenophobia that most Parlerans have against Elves. Early one spring morning in UC 1,147, a fireball exploded in a marketplace in Bustoke, killing over 100 people. According to a prepared statement, Elven terrorists were the ones who detonated the spell. The Archduke appointed a man known as Haama Vhet- who was secretly a Half-Field named Kaiyuber in disguise- the leader of the PSN, the Parleran Security Network. Shortly thereafter, the PSN began secretly rounding up, interrogating, and sometimes torturing and/or killing Half-Elves and Elves living in the city.